From Mistresses To Wives?: Mistress to a Bachelor / His Mistress by Marriage / Accidental Mistress

‘I’m at the hospital,’ Jessica responded. ‘Sarah had her baby sooner than expected. I should have called Leo to explain, but it all happened so fast it completely went from mind. Where are you, anyway?’

‘At home,’ he said. ‘I got an earlier flight.’ The pause was brief. ‘How come you were involved?’

‘Sarah and I were having lunch together when she started. Unfortunately, Brady missed it all, but he’s there with her now. A boy,’ she added. ‘Eight pounds, four ounces. Both doing well.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ Zac paused again. ‘How long have you and Sarah been meeting up?’

‘This was the first time. She rang me last night to suggest it.’

‘Any idea why?’

Jessica began a shrug, desisting on the realisation that he couldn’t very well see her. ‘I don’t think there was any particular reason. She just thought it time we met up again. A good thing, as it happened. We were a lot closer to the hospital than she would have been at home. I’d better ring Leo and let him know what’s happening. I’ll see you later.’

She rang off before he could say anything further, her eyes on the calendar pinned to a notice board opposite where she stood. Today was Wednesday. She and Zac had been married six weeks the previous Saturday. She’d had one period a week or so after the wedding, which meant she had been due again the previous week.

Looking a bit drained herself, Sarah had said earlier, but not for that reason, she thought now in determined rejection of any such idea. So she was a few days late. It wasn’t exactly the first time. Even allowing for the one or two occasions when Zac had neglected to use a condom, she’d been safeguarded by the Pill, anyway.

Leo received her call with obvious relief. ‘I thought you’d been in an accident or something,’ he said. ‘I was on the verge of ringing the police when Zac called. Don’t think about coming back to the office now. There’s nothing that can’t wait till morning. You go on home to that husband of yours.’

Given a choice, Jessica would have preferred to return to work, but Leo was going to think it very strange if she insisted on it. It seemed insensitive on the face of it to depart the hospital without saying goodbye to Sarah after all they’d gone through together, reluctant though she was to face the questions Brady no doubt had ready by now. There was nothing wrong in her and his wife having lunch together. He and Zac were the ones with the problem.

She found the three of them alone in the pleasant bedroom that was to be Sarah’s for the next few days while she acclimatised herself to being a mother. Brady had already acquainted himself with the details of their meeting. He unbent enough to offer his thanks for the speed with which Jessica had acted.

‘Naturally, I’d have preferred to be here myself,’ he said. The gaze he rested on the baby now sleeping soundly in the crib beside the bed was as proud as any new father’s would be. ‘A real Prescott, isn’t he? Grandfather will be delighted with him!’

‘I’m sure your grandmother will be too,’ Jessica felt bound to observe. ‘I spoke to Zac just now. He got back an hour ago.’ It was somewhat less than the truth, but she said it anyway. ‘He sends his congratulations.’

‘Tell him thanks.’ Brady had reverted to the hard-headed character she’d known in Dorset at the mention of Zac’s name. ‘You’ll be wanting to get back home yourself after all this.’

She’d heard subtler hints, Jessica thought drily. She caught Sarah’s eye, answering the appeal therein with a smile. ‘It’s certainly been an eventful afternoon! I’ll talk to you on the phone tomorrow, when you’re rested.’

She made her escape, glad to be away from the man she found so hard to like. His concern seemed to be more with his grandfather’s response to the news than his wife’s welfare right now. Sarah looked in dire need of sleep.

It took her nearly an hour to get home. The taxi dropped her at the entrance to the mews, leaving her to dash to number eleven in the sudden heavy downpour that had been threatening for the past half hour. Minus an umbrella, and wearing only a lightweight suit, she was soaked in seconds, her hair forming chestnut corkscrews as the curl took over. Zac came out from the sitting room as she opened the outer door. He viewed her bedraggled figure with unthrilled eyes.

‘You better get those things off before you get chilled,’ he said.

‘I’ll make you a hot drink,’ called Barbara from the kitchen.

‘Don’t bother,’ she called back. ‘I’m fine. I’ll be down in a few minutes,’ she added to Zac. ‘Do you want to stay in, or go out for dinner?’

‘We’ll go out,’ he said, retaining the same level tones.

Jessica headed up the spiral staircase. Reaching the bedroom, she stripped off to the skin, and took a quick shower, then donned fresh underwear and drew on a pair of black, lace-topped stockings to go with the hipskimming little black dress she fished from the wardrobe.

Her hair she left to dry naturally, after running a brush over it. A swift stroke of a mascara brush over her lashes, a dash of lipstick, and she was ready. Despite the lipstick, her face in the mirror looked colourless. She brushed on some blusher, but it seemed to fade away immediately. Imagination, she told herself brusquely. Any more, and she’d finish up looking like a china doll!

Barbara had gone by the time she got downstairs.

Turning to Zac, Jess asked, ‘Shall you be going to see the new arrival?’

‘I’d doubt Brady would look too favourably on a visit from me,’ Zac returned drily. ‘I don’t imagine he was any too pleased to know you’d been there at the birth when he couldn’t be.’

Jessica lifted her shoulders. ‘Understandable. Not that he made it all that obvious. He was just glad someone was with Sarah when it began. He’s beautiful. The baby, I mean. They’re calling him Henry, after his grandfather.’

‘Naturally.’ Zac studied her with a certain cynicism. ‘Made you feel a little broody yourself, did it?’

Her laugh was forced. ‘I can think babies are lovely without necessarily wanting one. It’s a lifetime commitment.’

‘And you don’t see us being together that long?’

Green eyes sought grey, unable to penetrate the depths. ‘Do you?’ she challenged.

‘Why not? Marriages have succeeded on far less than we have in common. Maybe a baby wouldn’t be such a bad idea?’

‘Especially if it put you back on a par with Brady.’ Jessica shook her head forcefully. ‘I’ve told you before, I’ve no intention of having a baby just to satisfy your grandfather. He might have the two of you in the palm of his hand, but he doesn’t have me!’

‘Fair enough.’ Zac sounded remarkably calm about it. ‘So we carry on the way we are for as long as it lasts. Where do you want to eat tonight?’

The swift change of subject left her floundering for a moment. She pulled herself together. ‘Anywhere. I don’t mind.’

‘The Minotaur, then.’

Eating out was the last thing Jessica felt like. Eating at all, in fact. Right now, bed and sleep offered the greatest inducement.

Whatever Zac’s inner feelings, he appeared his usual self on the surface the rest of the evening. The problem at the Lyon end had been ironed out without too much difficulty, he said. He didn’t mention how he’d passed the previous evening, and Jessica didn’t ask. It wasn’t outside the bounds of possibility that he’d simply had dinner at the hotel.

Perhaps with their earlier conversation in mind, Zac took care to use protection that night. His ardour was certainly no less for it though. Jessica responded as always, losing herself in the passionate caresses, in the feel of the lean, hard body, the power in his loins. As long as they had this, she could deal with the rest, she told herself on the edge of sleep.

She rang Sarah as promised the following morning, finding her exactly as she had left her the day before.

‘Life’s absolutely wonderful!’ the young mother exclaimed. ‘I can’t wait to get home with him, and show him off to everybody! Brady insisted on my having some help. Not a full-time nanny exactly, but she’ll be there several hours a day.’ She laughed. ‘I think he’s afraid I might find the whole thing too much for me and leave the poor little mite to fend for himself. As if I’d even consider it! You must come over to see us when we’re home. Zac too. It’s high time he and that husband of mine got together, if only socially.’

‘We will,’ Jessica promised, putting her doubts on that score aside. ‘Give Richard a kiss for me.’

‘Everything all right?’ asked Leo, emerging from the inner office as she put the phone down. ‘You look a bit tired this morning.’

‘Never tell a woman she looks tired,’ Jessica returned lightly. ‘It’s like saying she’s looking old!’

‘Hardly germane at your age.’ He smiled back. ‘Too many late nights, maybe? Zac doesn’t strike me as a man content to don a pair of slippers and watch TV of an evening.’

‘You’re right,’ she said, still on the same light note. ‘He’s far from ready to settle down to domesticity. Me too, for that matter.’

‘Well, providing you’re both of the same mind, there’s nothing to worry about. My marriage might have lasted a lot longer than it did if we’d shared the same outlook on life. I wanted kids, Christine saw them as too much of a tie. Something we should have gone into before we took the plunge, I suppose, but the subject never came up.’

Jessica kept a tight rein on her emotions as she gave him the file he asked for. So she was looking a little off-colour. Hardly a cause for concern on its own.

Except that it wasn’t on its own, of course. She was more than a week late. Still not such a lot, but she’d never fluctuated by that much before.